


Nothing But Blue Skies

by carolinecrane



Series: down is where we came from [25]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-23
Updated: 2010-10-23
Packaged: 2017-10-12 20:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinecrane/pseuds/carolinecrane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt's just trying to be reasonable.  Unfortunately for him, love generally isn't all that reasonable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing But Blue Skies

For a minute after Puck walks out, Kurt just stands in the hallway and stares at the spot where he was. He's not worried that Puck's gone for good; Puck loves him just as much as Kurt loves Puck, and anyway he doesn't give up that easily.

So Kurt knows he'll be back, but that doesn't do anything to ease the sinking feeling in his stomach, or the tightness in his throat when he pictures Puck's expression in the moment after Kurt said _I won't marry you_.

He was disappointed, of course. That much was to be expected, because Puck's used to getting what he wants. But surely even he can see how ridiculous this is, or he will be able to as soon as he calms down long enough to think about it. They've only been back in each other's lives for a few months, after all, and there are people who spend _years_ together before getting married.

It's too soon. That's just logical, and even Puck would have to admit he's right. But that same logic wouldn't stop Kurt from agreeing to marry Puck if he walked back in that door and asked again, no matter how Puck chooses to say it.

The door remains stubbornly closed, however, and when someone draws the short straw and comes to check on him, Kurt sighs and turns away from it.

"Son, was that Puck leaving?" his dad says. And of course it's his dad, because he knows Kurt better than anyone else in the house, loves him more than the rest of them put together, and it should be comforting, but mostly it just makes Kurt feel even worse.

"He just needs some time," Kurt answers, because he wants it to be true.

"You okay?" Burt asks, and Kurt nods and tries to smile and runs through multiplication tables in his head to hold back the tears.

"I'm fine. I'd just like to be alone for awhile."

He doesn't wait for Burt to answer; instead he pulls open the door to the basement and climbs down the stairs, looking around at the room that used to belong to him. The beds are still in the same position, and his old dressing table's still where he left it. His closet's still half-full of clothes he left behind when he moved away, but other than that, there's not much here that's him anymore.

Finn's slowly taken over the space, filling in the holes Kurt left behind until it's hard to see that there was ever someone else living here.

Kurt crosses to the bookshelf that used to hold his books and sheet music and copies of Vogue, fingers skimming along the football trophies and used textbooks and homemade, photocopied programs from Finn's community theater. On the bottom shelf is a messy stack of thin books, and when Kurt leans down to get a better look he realizes they're yearbooks.

He picks up the stack and carries them over to his bed, climbing into the center to cross his legs and flip open the yearbook from their sophomore year. It's been a long time since he thought about most of the faces staring back up at him, and it's hard to believe now that any of them were ever that young.

He finds his own picture first, wincing at the tight-lipped smile and the vaguely terrified expression. He remembers being pretty convinced back then that he was pulling off the fierce, 'better than you' facade he worked so hard to cultivate, but now he can see that he looked just as scared of life as the rest of his peers.

"The camera never lies," he whispers to the empty room, and his heart aches a little more for the confused kid he used to be.

He finds Mercedes on the opposite page, taking in her radiant smile and the confidence oozing from her image. And he knows her -- knew her, anyway, that younger version of whoever she is now -- so he knows she had her own insecurities. But she had a strong family and an even stronger faith in herself, and in a lot of ways she helped Kurt learn to stop faking it and really start believing in who he was.

Glee helped a lot with that too, he knows, and most educators would say that's because of the performance and competition. And they'd be partly right, but Kurt was _there_ , and he knows that mostly it was because of the support of the rest of the club. Finn probably wouldn't have saved him from the jock squad as many times as he did if it wasn't for Glee, and Puck...

Kurt presses his lips together until the urge to cry passes again, then he flips forward a couple pages to the Ps. And there's Noah Puckerman, smirking out at him in all his sixteen-year-old glory, mohawk firmly in place and his ever-present letter jacket hanging open over his chest. Even at sixteen he was beautiful, strong and sure of himself and in a lot of ways, everything Kurt wished he could be.

He was a mess, too, Kurt reminds himself, fingers tracing the edges of the picture. There were run-ins with the law, probably more than Kurt knows about. There were endless detentions, and before Glee ruined his reputation, he was the ringleader in all the jock squad's intolerant bullying missions. Then, of course, there was that messy business with Quinn and their daughter.

Kurt pictures Puck's face on that day back in his apartment in L.A., the look of fondness and gratitude -- and maybe a little relief? -- in the moment after Kurt offered to make a copy of Beth's picture for him. He knows Puck still feels that loss, knows that's why he holds on so _hard_ to what he's got now.

A door opens and then closes upstairs, and Kurt's heart skips a beat as he looks up. He remembers a second too late that they still have guests, that it's probably just Quinn and Mr. Schue saying goodnight and making as graceful an exit as possible, considering. He knows he's being rude, letting them leave without so much as a goodbye, but he thinks they probably understand. He's probably doing them a favor; this way they don't have to smile as though nothing's wrong and think of something to say other than 'we always knew you weren't as smart as you pretended, Kurt'.

He sighs and closes the yearbook, then he reaches into the stack for another. Their senior year, the one where they finally placed at Nationals and made Schue proud. The one where they made _Figgins_ proud, and even Coach Sylvester stopped bullying them for at least two full days. Even the other kids at school begrudgingly showed them a little respect after that.

It was a wonderful two weeks. Then they all graduated and life seemed like it was theirs for the taking for a little while, until reality came crashing back down.

Kurt smiles and flips to the back of the yearbook, to the club pages where they were finally allowed a full-page spread of their own. They didn't get the two pages the Cheerios got, of course, but they got a group picture, Schue smiling in the center of them all, hand on Finn's shoulder even back then, and Kurt smiles when he realizes for the first time that maybe Puck was a little more observant than Kurt in those days after all.

In the picture he's standing next to Mercedes, of course, Artie smiling in front of him and Kurt's arms crossed over his chest. Puck's in the back row on the opposite side of the picture, Mike to his left and Santana and Brittany in front of them, pinkies linked in their usual pose.

He's spent a long time trying to escape from the person he was back then, cutting off ties to the things that remind him too sharply that somewhere deep down, he's still that same person. First it was New York, where he was going to take Broadway by storm, until one day he got tired of trying to out-storm the thousands of other hopefuls who maybe wanted it just a little more.

After that was L.A., and Brittany was a familiar enough presence to anchor him in the vapidness of L.A. -- an irony which has never escaped him -- but she doesn't dwell on their shared history or drag up the embarrassing details of Kurt's awkward teenage years he's worked so hard to forget.

Then one day there was Noah Puckerman, with his motorcycle jacket and that same old smirk, same shared history and he brings it up more than Brittany does, but most of the time Kurt doesn't really mind. Because Puck knows him, knows the embarrassing stuff -- he was there for a lot of it, after all -- and all the good stuff too, like how much his father means to him and why his relationship with Finn is a little strained.

The basement door opens and Kurt looks up, holding his breath until he recognizes Finn's freakishly long legs coming down the stairs. He tells himself he's not disappointed and looks back down at the yearbook, leaning close to study the candid shots at the bottom of the page. There's one of Rachel and Finn, of course, singing some drippy romantic power ballad. Then there's one of most of them in costume, dancing to a Justin Timberlake song, if he's not mistaken.

"Hey," Finn says. "Okay if I come in?"

Kurt purses his lips for a second, until the urge to snap at Finn for the twentieth time this week that it's still his room passes.

"Of course," he finally says, then he lifts the yearbook so Finn can see the cover. "I hope you don't mind."

"No, of course not, dude," Finn says. He crosses the room in a few short strides, pausing just for a second at the edge of Kurt's bed. Like he's not sure if he's welcome, maybe. Until he sits down Kurt's not really sure either, and when he takes in Finn's shirt and his carefully tousled hair, his stomach clenches.

Because he knows how important tonight was for Finn. Not even for any earth-shattering reason, really. It's just that it's the first night Finn's invited Will over -- okay, so Puck invited him, technically, but still -- for something that doesn't have anything to do with school or a play or that car that's probably going to be the death of them both if they ever do manage to get it running.

Finn's been trying to pretend for days that it's no big deal, that Will's just a friend and the fact that Finn's suddenly realizing he might like to see Will naked doesn't really mean anything. Kurt knows better -- they both do -- but Finn hasn't tried to talk to him about it again, and he's not a good enough person to bring it up himself.

But when he found Finn earlier tonight, fresh from the shower and pulling a McKinley High football t-shirt over his head, Kurt had to step in. He had no choice in the face of that particular crime against fashion. Plus, there was still the fact that Finn's sort of his brother, and since it was Puck's fault Will was descending on them in less than an hour, he felt responsible.

So when he said, "What are you wearing?" and Finn blushed and stammered, "What? It's comfortable," Kurt just rolled his eyes and dragged Finn toward his own closet. Because there's comfort, and then there's reminding your former teacher, whose pants you'd maybe like to get into at some point, that you used to play football for the high school where he teaches.

It took a few minutes of rifling through long-abandoned fashions to find what he was looking for, but finally Kurt unearthed a seasons-old English Laundry button-down. It was red and blue plaid with a tasteful geometric design embroidered down the sleeves and along the yoke. Traditional enough that Finn wouldn't feel like he was wearing a costume, but fashion-forward enough to make him look like an actual grown-up instead of an overgrown high school kid.

"The idea is to make him stop seeing you as a kid," Kurt had said, and when Finn blushed he just rolled his eyes and ignored it. "I bought this on eBay years ago, but it was always too long for me. It might be right for you. Let's hope so, because I don't have anything else that would even come close to fitting."

Finn didn't argue, to his credit. He'd just pulled his old football shirt off again and handed it to Kurt, then he'd slid into the button-down and sure enough, it was a perfect fit. The colors brought out the pink in his skin, not that he ever needed much help with that, but it made him look healthy in a corn-fed sort of way. And they did live in the Midwest, after all, so that was probably exactly the sort of thing Schue went for.

Kurt smirked at the thought and handed Finn back his t-shirt, then he shoved him out of the closet and didn't laugh in Finn's face at the irony.

He's still wearing the shirt now, perched on the edge of Kurt's bed and angling his head into what looks like a really uncomfortable position to get a look at the yearbook. And Kurt felt terrible already, mostly for himself and the fact that he just let Puck leave to go off and do whatever stupid thing he's doing right now. But now he feels terrible about ruining Finn's night, because he looks really good in that shirt, and it's a shame it's gone to waste.

"Oh, man, I haven't looked at this in forever," Finn says, relaxing a little and sliding further onto Kurt's bed to get a good look at the picture of him and Rachel. "Do you remember that? Will made us sing that fucking song...what was it? Chicago or some shit. He's got the worst fucking taste in music."

The way he says it sounds so fond that Kurt can't help smiling.

"Air Supply," Kurt corrects him. "'All Out Of Love', if I'm not mistaken."

"Yeah, that was it. Man, that song sucked."

Finn's grinning like it was the best night of his life, but Kurt knows it's not because he's remembering singing a dreadful power ballad to Rachel Berry. He smiles back and nods toward Finn's chest. "You should keep that shirt. It looks really good on you."

"Thanks," Finn says, then his grin fades a little. "Listen, Kurt..."

"I'm fine," Kurt interrupts before he can get the words out, because really, what's there to say? "Or I will be, anyway, as soon as Noah gets over being mad at me and comes to his senses."

"So he hasn't called?"

Kurt shakes his head and glances toward his cell phone where it's lying on the mattress, right next to his knee. "I've been calling every so often. He keeps sending me to voicemail."

"Look, I'm sorry, Kurt. I shouldn't have said anything to Will. I mean, when Puck said he was going to marry you he told me he hadn't actually popped the question yet. It's just...he sounded so _sure_. Then I saw you guys together and you looked so solid, and I guess I figured he'd finally gotten around to asking."

"It's fine," Kurt lies, because it's not Finn's fault. As much as Kurt would like to hold it against someone -- anyone -- other than him and Puck, there's no one else to blame. And he hasn't really thought about the fact that Puck's been thinking about this for at least a month now, but when Finn reminds him, his heart hammers hard in his chest.

There were the test results, and now he finds that Puck's been talking about marriage to Finn, of all people, and Kurt's father, and probably Quinn too. And he hasn't actually proposed before tonight, but he's as much as promised Kurt he's not going anywhere, and Kurt hates the part of him that won't let him believe it. The part of him he tried to run away from and then ignore, the part of him that's staring up at him from an old picture in a high school yearbook, scared and insecure and using his wardrobe and his wit to protect himself from ever getting his heart broken.

"I'm sorry I ruined your date," Kurt says, and when Finn blushes he can't help smiling. "Or are we still pretending you're not in love with Mr. Schuester?"

"Oh, God, don't call him that, it makes this whole thing even weirder," Finn moans, hand over his face and Kurt laughs, but for some reason he can't explain he starts to tear up again.

Kurt clears his throat and pinches the bridge of his nose, runs through a couple lines of "Singing In the Rain" in his head until he feels the urge to cry start to ebb. And it _is_ weird, weird like the idea of him and Puck somehow being perfect for each other. But 'weird' doesn't make it any less true, and if Kurt's going to become a Midwestern cliche and marry someone he met in high school, he figures Finn and Mr. Schuester -- Will -- might as well get a chance to see if it can work for them too.

He has no idea how long it's been since Puck left. Hours, he's pretty sure, because he's pressed Puck's speed dial nearly a dozen times since then. After the first five times he knows Puck's not going to pick up, but he keeps calling anyway, just to hear Puck's voice on the recorded message.

He's reaching for his phone, just to check the time -- because honestly, enough's enough, and he's not going to call _again_ \-- when Darius Rucker starts singing about holding his hand. Kurt's heart stutters to a halt and then starts over again in double-time, and he ignores Finn's raised eyebrow at the idiotic ringtone and presses the 'send' button.

"Where are you?"

"At the window," Puck says. "Get over here and let me in."

Kurt's off the bed before Puck even stops talking, dragging a chair to the basement window and pushing the latch open. Puck's jacket comes through first, and Kurt reaches up and takes it before he climbs down off the chair to give Puck room to shimmy through an opening that should be too small for him. Apparently he's some sort of expert in breaking and entering, though, so clearly he knows what he's doing.

He drops onto the chair and turns to shut the window, shivering against the cold as he steps down off the chair. "Dude," he says, looking past Kurt to where Finn's still sitting on the edge of his bed. "Do you mind?"

"Yeah...I mean, no," Finn answers, and Kurt feels a little bad about kicking him out of his own room, but not bad enough to stop him when he stands up and heads for his bed. He grabs a pillow and a blanket and his phone, Kurt notes, sliding it into his pocket in what he probably thinks is a completely casual way. Then he's gone, up the stairs and closing the door behind him, and Kurt doesn't ask who he's planning to call at this hour.

Before the door even closes Kurt's moving forward, wrapping his arms around Puck's waist and pressing his cheek against his shoulder. He's cold, winter air clinging to his clothes and his skin, and Kurt shivers when Puck's arms slide around his shoulders and burrows a little closer, trying to press as much body heat into him as he can.

"What is it with you and windows?" Kurt mumbles into his shirt, and Puck laughs and tightens his grip.

"I didn't want to wake your folks."

And he still doesn't know what time it is, but it must be late if Puck assumed Burt and Carole were in bed.

"Look, I'm sorry for running my mouth and fucking this up," Puck says, talking into Kurt's hair now as though he's a little scared to say the words. "But I've been thinking about marrying you...pretty much since that first morning in my shower. I guess I've just been thinking about it so long I forgot, you know, that I hadn't mentioned it yet."

Kurt's heart skips another beat when he realizes Puck's been thinking about this almost since their first kiss. It's terrifying, and there's a part of him that wants to run, but the rest of him wants to hang on as tight as he can and never, ever let go.

"Don't you think this is a little fast?" Kurt says, but he's not even sure he believes that anymore, and it's pretty clear Puck doesn't. "We've barely been together three months."

"Here's how I figure it," Puck says, pulling back to look at him and Kurt has to stop himself from trying to drag Puck close again. Then Puck's hand slides into his hair, fingers stroking the soft skin at the back of his neck and sending little shivers of want down Kurt's spine.

"People date each other for-fucking-ever because they're trying to get to know each other, right? I mean, you know the stuff about snoring and stealing covers and who puts the empty milk carton back in the fridge pretty much right away. The stuff that takes awhile is the part we've already got covered. How you grew up, what kind of weird shit happened when you were a kid to fuck you up, what you want out of life, crazy exes crawling out of the woodwork."

And Kurt gets what he's saying, because if they'd just met for the first time that night at the bar, he wouldn't know Puck had a daughter, or that she lived with some other family now. He wouldn't know why his band's so important to him when they're obviously not going anywhere, and he wouldn't get that Puck's a bartender to pay the bills, but his real talent lies in songwriting.

He wouldn't know that even though he never goes to temple or whatever, that his cultural heritage is important to Puck for what are, granted, kind of bizarre reasons. That he believes in God, but he's not obnoxious about it, and he respects Kurt's decision not to. They covered all of that years ago, and now they've got the stealing covers and favorite toothpaste brands -- and yes, fine, even the drooling on pillowcases thing -- down.

Puck's making his favorite drink before Kurt even reaches the bar when he comes by during Puck's shift, and he stopped laughing at Kurt over his weakness for appletinis a long time ago. He knows Kurt hates his bike but thinks he looks hot in his leathers, and he hates Project Runway, but he knows it's important to Kurt, so he doesn't complain about Thursday nights _too_ much.

"It's not fast," Puck says, and Kurt can't think of a single argument against him. "It's taken us a long damn time to get here, babe, and I don't see the point in wasting any more of it."

"I love you," Kurt says, fingers closing hard around the front of Puck's shirt. He's holding on, making sure Puck doesn't go far, because the last time they tried to talk about this Puck just walked out, and okay, he came back, but part of Kurt's been expecting him to walk out pretty much since this thing started. "More than I've ever loved anyone. Of course I want to marry you. But."

He feels Puck tense against him and tightens his grip a little more, but Puck doesn't try to pull away, and that's the best Kurt can hope for.

"But I need you to understand how important this is to me. When we were in high school I dreamed of being able to hold hands with someone I cared about right out in the open, without having to worry about slushie facials or trips to the dumpster or worse. I was out, but I could never really be myself then. And now I can, and I need to know that you're taking this seriously. We're talking about marriage, Noah. A real one."

"You think I don't know that?" Puck says, but he doesn't really sound angry. More...determined, Kurt thinks, and he lets his grip on the front of Puck's shirt ease a little. "What you said before, about gay marriage being the same as a guy and a girl getting married. You're wrong, you know."

Kurt opens his mouth to interrupt, but Puck shakes his head and grips Kurt's shoulders, then he leans in and plants a hard kiss on his lips.

"Shut up and hear me out," he says. "It _is_ different, babe. I could go down to any courthouse in Ohio tomorrow and marry some girl right off the street. I could marry a new girl every month if I wanted and nobody would bat an eye. But our people fought hard so we could get gay married, and they're still fighting to make sure we can stay married. So yeah, it's fucking different. It's _better_ , because we don't take it for granted."

Kurt's heart is still beating fast when Puck eases him forward again, kissing him slow this time. He doesn't bother pointing out that there's a little more to marrying a girl than just showing up at the courthouse, because he gets the point. And he should have known, really, because it's just like Puck to skip right over the part where Kurt just wants to be treated like a normal person and decide that they're better because they have to work even harder for it.

Puck's hands leave Kurt's shoulders to slide around his waist, down his back to rest at his hips. Kurt loops his arms around Puck's neck, parting his lips on a sigh. He's pressed against Puck's chest, one hand coming up to rest at the base of his scalp and when Puck makes that little purring sound and pushes back against his fingers, Kurt smiles against his mouth.

He's about three seconds from throwing the 'no sex in my dad's house' rule out the window Puck just crawled through when Puck pulls back, shaking his head and that's definitely not how this is supposed to go.

"No, I'm doing it right this time," Puck says, stepping out of Kurt's grip altogether and that's _really_ not how this is supposed to go.

Kurt opens his mouth to say so, but when Puck slides to his knees in front of him he feels his throat close up altogether. "Noah..."

"Shut up," Puck says, but he's grinning, so Kurt decides not to be offended. "I went through a lot of fucking trouble for this, and my mom will kick my ass if I fuck it up again."

He's fumbling in his pocket for something, and when he pulls out a little square box Kurt wishes he was sitting down. Which is kind of stupid, because Puck's already proposed twice, and Kurt said yes -- sort of, anyway, but he's pretty sure it counts -- so they both know what his answer is going to be. But Puck's kneeling in front of him looking happy and handsome and _nervous_ , for God's sake, and Kurt can't control the way his hands tremble when Puck reaches for the left one.

He opens the box and pulls out a silver band. It's got a thin line of black inset in the center, and there are two small diamonds sparkling in the center of the black band. It's simple and tasteful and reminds him a lot of Puck, but he knows the diamonds are all him, which makes it pretty much perfect.

"Marry me?" Puck says, and for once Kurt doesn't roll his eyes and tell him he's being ridiculous. Instead he swallows hard around the lump in his throat, then wipes at his eyes with his free hand.

"I already said yes."

Puck grins and slides the band onto Kurt's finger, then he reaches back into his pocket and takes out another ring. This one's a little thicker than the one on Kurt's hand, and there are no diamonds set into the ring of carbonite. Puck slides it onto his own finger and reaches for Kurt's hand again, holding the rings close so Kurt can see how well they match.

Kurt tugs at his grip until Puck takes the hint and stands up, then he lets Kurt pull him forward for a thorough kiss.

"Is this why you wouldn't answer your phone?"

"Couldn't, babe," Puck says, the words warm against Kurt's skin as he mouths his way along Kurt's jaw. "It was pretty late already when I left; all the stores were closed. So I had to go see my Nana and get her to call in a favor for me. Then when I told her what I wanted she freaked out and called her Rabbi, and it took awhile for him to come over and talk her down."

"Talk her down?" Kurt asks, but he's not really following what Puck's saying. He can hardly be blamed, considering the way Puck's hands are sliding under his shirt and the way his mouth's moving on Kurt's neck.

"Yeah, she's worried God's going to smite me or whatever for going gay. So she called the Rabbi to come pray over me or something, I don't know. But when he got there and heard what she was all worked up about, he was actually pretty cool. He said maybe the great prophets didn't know _everything_ , you know, and that he couldn't really see how God would have a problem with two people who really loved each other.

"I don't think she's going to throw us a parade or anything, but she'll probably come to the wedding. Anyway, she knows this Jew jeweler who owns a store over on Elida, so she called him and got him to open up his place after hours. He says he's actually doing a pretty decent business in engagement rings for dudes these days. Says the whole gay marriage thing's been great for his bottom line."

That's a little surprising, given they're still in Lima, but Kurt's not really interested in the success or failure of the jewelry industry at the moment. He's far more interested in the fact that Puck's serious enough about them to not only out himself to his grandmother and endure a -- granted, somewhat aborted -- religious intervention, but to drag some unsuspecting local businessman out of bed just so he could propose in the way he thought Kurt wanted him to.

Which turns out to be pretty much exactly the right way.

"You could stay," Kurt says, nodding toward the bed where he left his phone and the pile of Finn's yearbooks. "Finn's probably already asleep on the couch."

"What happened to the rules?"

"That was before I knew you were already telling my family you planned to make an honest man of me."

"Babe, if your dad knew the things I want to do to you, he'd lock you up and throw away the key."

Puck leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of Kurt's mouth, and when Kurt turns into it Puck sinks his teeth into Kurt's bottom lip. He gasps at the sensation, and Puck takes the in and pushes his tongue past Kurt's teeth, hand on the back of his head to hold him still while Puck tongue-fucks his mouth.

It's a tease and they both know it, but if it's a promise of things to come, Kurt's more than okay with a little teasing. He pushes his fingers through the loops on Puck's jeans and tugs him forward, moving back toward the bed without breaking the kiss. Puck's not putting up a fight -- not that Kurt expects him to -- so when his legs hit the back of the mattress Kurt pulls away long enough to shove the yearbooks off the end of the bed.

Puck laughs when Kurt sits down on the edge of the mattress, moving backward to give Puck enough room to join him. Puck plants one knee on the mattress and leans in, hands braced on either side of Kurt as he kisses him again. And it's really been far too long since they did this, but Kurt's still not satisfied, because Puck's barely touching him.

He reaches up to tug at Puck's belt loops again, because he wants to feel Puck's weight pressing him into the mattress. He wants to feel Puck's heart beating against his own, feel his hands searching for any part of Kurt he can reach, sliding under clothes to find fever hot skin.

"I can't stay," Puck murmurs against his mouth, and Kurt's sure he didn't hear right, because there's no way Puck's turning down an offer to throw every single one of Kurt's rules out the window.

But as soon as he says it his phone rings, and he pulls away from Kurt and digs in his pocket until he finds it, then he scowls at the display and flips it open. "Ma, I know."

He listens for a second, staring at Kurt the whole time and Kurt knows how he must look, but he doesn't really care, because Puck's actually _leaving_ , and this is absolutely, one hundred percent _not_ the way this is supposed to go. They're engaged now, for the love of everything his crazy family members find holy, and that means they're entitled to a little uninterrupted time to celebrate.

Only Puck's frowning and rubbing at his forehead, then he's looking around for his jacket, which Kurt's pretty sure he dropped on the floor at some point. "Yeah, I know what I said. No, I don't know what time it is. Yeah, Ma, alright, I'll be right there, okay?"

He closes his phone with a snap and lets out a sigh, then he looks over at Kurt. Kurt who's still stretched out on his bed, propped up on his elbows and watching Puck rub at the back of his neck.

"I have to get my mom's car back before morning," he says, and at least he has the decency to sound apologetic. "She doesn't trust me to make it back before she has to leave for work, so she's been waiting up. It's like 1:00 in the morning and she's pretty pissy when she doesn't get to bed on time."

"I understand," Kurt lies, because he really, really doesn't. What he does understand is that he's offering Puck total, no-holds barred access to his bed and his person, right here in his father's house. He's not even planning to make Puck be all that quiet, because Finn's the only one who would hear them, and Kurt doesn't care that much at this point.

It's about the best offer Kurt can make, yet Puck's still pulling his jacket back on and giving him that guilty look, like he knows how much this sucks, but he's still going through with it.

"If I'd known you were going to toss the rules I would have made her drop me off or something," Puck says. He climbs back onto the bed and stretches out next to Kurt, and when he leans in for one last kiss Kurt doesn't push him away.

Instead he turns into it, rolling onto his side and resting a hand on Puck's cheek because he may be disappointed, but he's not above taking what he can get. Puck's hand comes up to cover his, and when Kurt feels Puck's finger tracing his ring his heart skips another beat.

When Puck's phone beeps again he growls against Kurt's mouth and sits up, pulling Kurt with him. He doesn't bother looking at the text message; instead he grabs Kurt's hand and pulls him toward the stairs, out of the basement and into the hall. Kurt can hear steady breathing coming from the living room and he knows Finn's fast asleep on the couch, but he keeps his voice down anyway.

"You're making this up to me tomorrow."

"Hey, if I'd known sex was back on the table I would have _walked_ back over here," Puck says, grinning and pulling Kurt close. "Then I would have let you warm me up."

Kurt smiles in spite of himself and leans up to press another kiss to Puck's lips. Strong arms slide around his waist, pulling him close and just holding on for a second. Then Puck lets go and reaches for the doorknob, turning the lock before he looks back over his shoulder.

"I love you, Kurt."

"I figured." Kurt holds up his ring hand and smiles when Puck laughs. "Now go before I give in to my better judgment and lock you in the basement for the rest of this wretched vacation."

When he's gone Kurt locks the door, then he leans against it and closes his eyes. So far they've been interrupted by Finn, Mr. Schuester, and now Puck's mother. He knew when he agreed to come home for Christmas that they weren't going to get much time alone, and he even knew how frustrating it was going to be for both of them. But he didn't know Puck was going to _propose_ , and somehow knowing Puck wants to be with him forever makes the thought of sleeping apart for another week even worse.

He opens his eyes and looks down at his ring, twisting it on his finger and smiling at the memory of Puck on his knees, grinning up at him while he waits for Kurt to answer. Puck on his knees is a little too much for him right now, though, and Kurt grits his teeth against a frustrated groan and pushes himself off the door.

 _Tomorrow,_ he thinks as he climbs the stairs back down to the basement. Tomorrow he's going to fix this, starting with giving Puck the perfect Hanukkah gift. It's not test results or anything, but it's sure as hell better than a sweater.

**Author's Note:**

> Normally I would be all apologetic about how appallingly romantic this thing is, but someone I used to like very much said some pretty horrible things to me yesterday regarding gay marriage, and suddenly the appalling levels of romance don't seem nearly so embarrassing.


End file.
